GW Lightning Arc Side Stories LOVE
by LoveyouHateyou
Summary: Rating M because of male male affection and mild references to sex. Nothing explicit. Treize wonders what he is missing. Zechs is not all about work either in this one…


**Lightning Arc Side Stories – LOVE**

**Fandom:** GW  
**Pairing:** Zechs and Treize  
**Warnings:** Treize has a moment…  
**Rating:** M/NC-15 because of male-male affection and mild references to intimacies. Nothing explicit.  
**Summary:** Treize wonders what he is missing; Zechs is not all about work either in this one…

**xxx**

I love him. I love him, undeniably, unalterably, in every sense of the word.

I love him, and the first time I told him, I did so in the sweet, rolling sounds of my mother tongue. Ya tebya lyublyu.

And it was easy. I felt as light as a feather with happiness when I saw the answer in his eyes before he allowed a small smile to touch his lips… soft, thin lips and cool, grey-blue eyes with a dark rim around the steel-coloured iris, making them deep and luminous… drowning me at once. Completely.

How old were we? Six. Yes, he was six when I told him, and it had been innocent then, to console him over the loss of everything else in his world… later it was different. Charged, sultry, hot with sweat and urgency, and thick with the smells of man and desire.

Somewhere in between, we had changed.

When did I cross, tumble, swing over the fine line between friendship and love? When did it strike me – like a thunderbolt no less – that this was no longer the affection of an elder brother for his young sibling?

I have no idea. I try to recall and draw a blank. I watch him, I burrow back into the mist of my first memories with him, and still fail to mark the moment.

It is oddly irritating, as if I had missed something. Something important, crucial even… and I cannot afford the time to search for it.

But I can watch.

While I sit in front of my computer terminal and let lists of names scroll past me, drinking in the ever-growing procession of letters and tag numbers unthinkingly, adding to the weight of sorrow that moves me. Where sorrow lies, light must follow, surely, some day. I do not want his name on that terrible list.

I like watching him, as one might watch a brewing thunderstorm or the break of sunlight after a tempest, all silver and brightness, so blindingly clear… a fascinating spectacle of darkness and light…

Clarity. There is no falseness in him. He has tempers – I should know – and fits of bleak misery, along with those utterly rare moments of childlike happiness, when he feels he has accomplished something he considers critical… or when he finally gets something he covets.

He can be persistent.  
Yes, I should know indeed.

And I should be… no, I AM flattered, humbled, honoured. And deliriously happy, drunk of this gift of which I am utterly undeserving… because I know he loves me back.

He told me so.  
He never lies.

He will prefer to be silent, to prevent a lie slipping his lips. So I have learned to mark his silences, like one would mark potholes on a bumpy road, or a pit of darkness amid the starry fields of space.

The fields where we fight our wars.  
The fields that embrace our fallen with their careless chill…  
I wonder what he buries there, in those fathomless silences…

They are like warning signs – he does not like talking much, even though he can if he has to. Yet moving – the shift sometimes almost unnoticed – from quiet to silent… he taught me that it won't do to let my focus slip, not for a moment, not for a heartbeat, not for the whisper of an eyelash over pale skin…

Never.

So I watch him. Constantly, beyond everything else that is going on around me, everything I try to manage, run, command, there is this nagging, sapping drain of energy, like some artlessly placed tap wire. And sometimes doubts creep up on me – for how long can I keep this up? When will I trip, make the fatal faux pas, succumb to a silly little oversight… because I am too tired to stay fit for command?

Is it truly just a matter of time?  
No one can be so happy and go unpunished.  
Or can we?

I dare to hope.

I am fighting to make it happen. To make it last. The memory of our first lovemaking, with him inside me because he was still so young. I never told him that it was a first for me, too, this way. No one else would come this close to me. The memory of doing this to him for the first time, when it was not considered a crime for either of us any longer… it remained like this, our play reversed. Although he never was a quiet taker, just more comfortable, a tad more confident like that… I do not delude myself into thinking that I always was the one guiding.

And yet…

Again I feel as though I was missing… overlooking something critical. I can sense it, hovering just beneath the clear, hard mirror of my conscious mind. It is there, taunting, teasing, waiting for me to reach out to grab it – only to flit away, retreat deeper, swiftly, into the murky recesses of thoughts yet to be born.

What is it?  
What did I overlook?  
What can possibly wrench us apart?

He glances up from his workstation and gives me, after a fraction of a moment, a quiet smile.

Here. Here it is. I caught it. This fraction… this tiny hesitation… why?

I ask. He pushes out his lower lip, thoughtfully, eyes drifting back to his screen where a model of Tallgeese spins slowly, enmeshed in the green, spidery web of neuronal links of the Zero system like a living thing, something organic capable of growing roots and shoots and branches… or nerves and thoughts and a mind of its own.

Its own mind.  
Its own consciousness.  
Melding with that of its master in the most intricate way… sharing his memories and his self.

What have I done?

He looks up again, meeting my gaze freely, and shrugs. No idea, he says, blowing a strand of silverblond off his nose, before brushing back his bangs with an irritated gesture. He dismisses both my spoken question and the one in my thoughts, with this non-answer. He talks about Tallgeese now, turning the screen so I can see better what he is explaining, excitement colouring his deep, full voice.

Such a surprising, dark voice for someone so young. He is not quite nineteen. His tone is secure, used to being obeyed, firm. He knows what he is talking about, he likes his work, he feels thoroughly at home when he is surrounded by computers or parts, smelling of paper or engine oil, or a dousing of kerosene when he has not been careful enough down at the hangars. He loves his jet. He loves the speed and power, all under his control. He needs to feel that he is in charge.

I want to... I long... yet I cannot, I must not allow him to control me.

He will not notice, but I am having a hard time concentrating. Literally. What with him trim and snug in that black Alliance issue overall he wears when he moves back and forth between the grease work and the paperwork. Hangar, office, command station, sim console, back to hangar…

Like a child, awed by his favourite toy. His oil-smeared work gloves of hard black leather lie close to the keyboard he is swiftly tapping while his eyes flit over the screen where the model changes obediently for the master who directs it. Inside the leather gloves stick soft, whisperfine white cotton ones, for working on the electronic innards of the Mobile Suit.

He does all that in well-worn combat boots and this zipped, pocket-studded sheath of black fabric that fits comfortably enough for him to work. It still has nothing baggy when he fills it with broad shoulders, long legs, muscular arms, a firm waist snugly hugged by a drawstring that prevents the uniform from flapping about.

He points at some part of Tallgeese, magnifying on the screen as he looks up, seeking my gaze. Critical, expecting my comment – he never hunts for approval, he does not care, when he is working, whether I approve or not of him. His only interest right now is to get Tallgeese working at the whisper of a thought…

This whisper, Zero, like a steady current in the back of our minds, ready to burst into a deafening howl, plunging us into combat...

_/A hand gripping mine painfully hard, a reflex set off by my touch on his shoulder… the shock in his eyes, the startled expression, the words that will not flow – I made my decision then, and he, of course, gathered himself enough to argue._

_You want me to stop what?_

_I want you to stop testing Zero. Use someone else. Someone easier to replace than my Second in Command._

_Tre… we cannot do this. You know we can't – it's going to set us back… you're being selfish._

_I am merely redeploying my resources. There are other good men in the Specials. There is none I would want for my Second. I do not want you to grow into this… thing. You can do without it – you are a brilliant pilot, your reflexes are the best, the fastest humanly possible. You do not have to go beyond that._

_But THEY will. They have. And changing the trial now… you know that every delay will cost lives. And if I am not doing this for myself, then it's for your men who aren't ace pilots, who'll need Zero to stand up against those monsters the colonies visit upon us. You know that, Tre. And who better to test the system than me? Whom would you trust more? Tsubarov, perchance/_

Catching my expression, he narrows his eyes. Pausing, perhaps pondering the lack of a response on my part. His ponytail, tied and twisted into a tight knot at the nape of his neck, is fraying. His hair is too smooth and heavy for this kind of arrangement, and during his work, he will keep re-doing it, getting those silverblond swathes all grimy and tangled-up. It will take him forever to wash and smooth them out afterwards, yet he stubbornly keeps this pale mane, putting up with the strain on his patience and the gossip it causes.

Now he has a smudge of amber-dark grease on one rounded, downy-stubbled cheek and a frown between his white brows. What is it? he demands, concerned and edgy.

Nothing. It is nothing, I assure him, mustering my usual authority. There, easy. It is settled. He believes me. With this simple, overwhelming trust he has, in me. What a wonderfully generous gift.

What a frightening burden.

He smiles again. This time with breathtaking brilliance, lighting up his eyes, igniting a wicked little glint in those grey-blue depths that always remind me of a frosty winter sky…

Sending my thoughts spiralling from their lofty perch right into some rather uncouth nether regions… where I would like to… bend him over the desk… right here… with my hands all over him… feeling him, drinking him in… beautiful… no, no, no. How unprofessional this would be… and yet… so… outrageously… recklessly rotten… so wonderfully, satisfyingly dirty.

I know he would be game. He is edging closer, a mere sway of his upper body, a soft rolling of his shoulders and slight tilting up of his chin, defiant because he knows…

No time? he murmurs, forestalling my reaction to his unasked question, his unspoken offer contained in his fading, slightly wry smile, and whatever else it is that wells up between us, thick and hot and stifling every wisp of reason with maddening insistence.

_/There never will be a right time for us, Tre. And I'm scared, it's driving me mad to think if I'm not saying these things now, they might remain unsaid altogether…_

_They won't. You will tell me everything… after this war is over. I believe, in hope, in you, in living. We will live through this, and we will win./_

Is this it then? This wave that drowns us, reduces us to something

roiling around in our guts until it has been fed and satisfied, to coil up and sleep for a while, only to jolt awake and rip out every reasonable thought again at a whim… at the sight of a blond head, the glimpse of tanned skin against the pristine white collar of his dress uniform, or a mere smile…

No. We control this. We work too much for it to drive us insane. Even though he leaves the top three buttons of the grease-stained overall open intentionally. I catch a flash of white; I know that beyond the gaping collar, beyond the cuffs of his sleeves, the soft tan ends in a defined line. That beyond that line and his grey cotton vest, his body is pale and white, with a smattering of fine silver scars from when he crashed the test craft… it nearly killed him. He nearly killed me.

So what else is there? What did I not see?

He told me once, bitterly and not bothered to hide it, that I was looking too far ahead to see things close to me. Scheming too much to let go and simply be. He was not above making a scene because Une gave me a rose for my birthday.

Lucy and her had sought me out; we had been talking rather lightly, the women smart and glowing, brightened by champagne. Perhaps I allowed things to go a little soft, and that emboldened them... and no, I did not mind. It felt good to be in trusted company amid all that brass and silk. Lucy was cracking some joke, we all laughed; then Une kissed me on the cheek. The music was great, she looked pretty even though she was wearing uniform too. I could not have him there. So I danced with her.

Earlier, I had seen him dancing with Lucy, drawing her closer than, maybe, he would have needed. It was my birthday, and that single moment utterly ruined it.

His willingness for discretion was limited to allowing me to pull him out onto the veranda of the ballroom before he let rip, and when we were done with our spat, he followed me almost meekly into the winter-still park… I had him there, on the damp, cold ground. We did not want to stain our finery – full mess dress, white uniform pants, and black soil do not mix well – so we got naked. Icy water dripping down on us from the bare branches of the old trees, a clear pattern of black and silver shadows cast over us by a bright moon. The shimmer of his hair fanning out on the black soil, dead leaves tangling darkly in those pale strands. Shivering and with clattering teeth, we only realised afterwards, with sweat chilling our skin, just how cold it was.

For several days after that, he was running a temperature and battling a terrible cold; he lurched about exhausted and drowsy with medication – and rarely did I see him this content. Not smug. Just… settled.

Things close to us…

Maybe, it is all rather simple, after all.  
Perhaps this is what I can't see.

The simplicity.  
The stupidity.

The small, so very human dimension of what we are trying to do. It is not comfortable to view myself through a looking glass, to see all my flaws and sins magnified. No, there are not that many, and most of them are not very great, but they seem rather pathetic when stripped of the lacquer of smart uniforms and smooth diplomacy.

To find this…  
Jealousy.

Well hidden. Chained to some dark little place, a corner of my mind close enough to my conscious to be aware… to watch uneasily… so close, so precariously brittle…

Jealousy.  
No. No, this cannot be it.

We are greater than that.  
We are greater.

He is still scrutinising me, the smile slipping strangely, cooling and darkening. It's working, he says, oddly ambiguous. Gestures, again a tad belatedly, at Tallgeese on the screen.

It gives me an excuse to step around to his side of the desk, to study what he has done… to appraise the modifications that will make this project our success. I have no doubt here, neither in him nor in me. We will turn over this war, this world, this universe. Him and me, together. And I cannot help the quickening pulse of my heart, or the surge of hope and light that washes through me. Him and me. Together. We will conquer it all, and we will live forever. This I promised him.

I will keep my promise. At any cost.

When I still feel his gaze upon me, I steady myself with a long breath. Lean over to touch him, arm to arm, my fingers lightly on his wrist, his pulse.

He closes his eyes when I kiss his brow.  
I love you too, he murmurs.

I do not want to know what he chooses not to say. I should ask. No good commander blinds himself wilfully. It is an act of criminal insanity to do so. Yet I…

This… this is it.

I feel his pulse flutter, hot and fast, beneath my touch, and it rushes at me with the violence of a thunderstorm, that this, indeed, must be it. I can see, with shocking clarity...

That I choose not to see.  
That I am blind because I love him.  
That I have blinded myself, welcoming the unseeing clarity of it all.

I love him.

And there is nothing… nothing I can do about it.

**xxx**

The End


End file.
